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Welcome, fellow genealogists! My blog will teach you about U.S. land records and United Kingdom research. My family has roots in Niagara County, New York; Norfolk, England; and northeast Germany.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Wisdom Wednesday: Essex Pilgrims and Adventurers

The
first time I saw the trailer for the new PBS series, Last Tango in Halifax, I was on vacation in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I
remarked to my husband that it would be fun to watch because we might see
places where we had just been. As most of you now know, the TV series takes
place in Halifax, Yorkshire. Um…

Luckily,
a recent find at a used book sale was easier to decipher. I quickly realized it
was not about pilgrims in Essex County, Massachusetts.

Smith, J.R. Pilgrims
& Adventurers:Essex (England) and
the Making of the United States of America. Chelmsford: Essex Records
Office, 1992, 64 pp.

John
Smith has written at least nine local history books for the Essex Records
Office where he was the senior archivist in 1992. In this book, he concentrates
on the contributions of Essex men in Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The book is notable because of its
illustrations which include maps, drawings and paintings from the ERO
collection which are impossible to find on this side of the Atlantic. There are
at least a dozen photos or old engravings of parish churches, for example.

Some
of the names included are John Winthrop, Thomas Hooker, George Washington, and
William Pynchon, but lesser known settlers, names abound. It has an extensive
index. This is the type of book that
could have a big impact on a small number of researchers and serves as a reminder
that each county record office may have a similar publication. (The Norfolk
Record Office has an online exhibition titled, “Norfolk’s American Connections”
at www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk.
)

To
see if the book is still available new, contact the Essex Record Office that
does not seem to have a shop on their web site.

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About Me

I began searching for my family in 1994. In the winter, I teach beginner and intermediate Genealogy in Sarasota, Florida. Right now, I am nurturing a career as a speaker and lecturer.
I am on the board of my Florida genealogy society and co-leader of its United Kingdom Special Interest Group. As a break from my genealogy, I researched the friends and neighbors of 'Silent Cal' for my book titled, Calvin Coolidge: At Home in Northampton.